50 and 11

Mike turned 50 this August. 50! It feels like I should have something profound to say about Mike reaching 50 (particularly as I'm hot on his tail). 

I mean ... half a century? 

More than twice the age we were when we met? 

It's certainly something! 

And perhaps reaching that point myself this December will inspire some sort of thought-provoking words. (?) 

For now, I will just post some birthday pictures of Mike at 50 and his birthday twin Mette at 11.

I didn't give Mike anything amazing for his birthday. (A hat. And Johan Bojer's The Last of the Vikings -- which the two of us read out loud together a few years ago but didn't yet own a copy of.) But Mike bought a mother cow and her baby close enough to his birthday that perhaps we can count them as birthday gifts. And two cows is a pretty good gift. (More pictures later. They are a very fun coloring and she is remarkably gentle.)

I'm not an enormous fan of throwing big, friend-type, birthday parties, but Mette had been begging and pleading, so we let her have one the day before her real birthday. 

Below they had to guess Mette's age in each picture.

Everyone always gives Mike root beer for his birthday. Goldie and Wyatt decided to change it up a bit by bringing dry ice and stuff to make homemade root beer this year.

When you share a birthday with one of your children, it's a fact that most of the celebrating is geared towards that child. (The same was true with me and my dad. Our birthdays were actually a day apart, but we generally celebrated together ... meaning, I generally got most of the attention. :)) But! We did make them each their own cake! That's something!

Happy birthday to these two people!

Dying Animals and Faint Hearts

This business of raising animals is not for the faint of heart. 

Unfortunately, ... we are the faint of heart. 

Pig died. 

It's one thing to have a helpless, little new animal die, but something so big and ambling and snorting and alive? 

Our kids took it like losing a beloved family dog. 

There was a rainbow after though. 

(And then we covered her with a tarp so the kids wouldn't have to remember her that way, and Mike's uncle brought his backhoe--we needed an entire backhoe!--to bury her.)

We discovered surprise chicks last week. (Surprise chicks! Can you imagine the excitement of kids finding surprise chicks?)

Then one drowned. (Ohhhh!)

Another was born a full four days after the others. Its beak was crooked and it was having trouble keeping up with its siblings. ("Can I at least have the little broken chick?" Hans wept to me after his chick---the one that drowned--met its sad end.) 

Because it wasn't strong enough to keep up with the older chicks, Mike put it under the hen who had been sitting faithfully on a golf ball. 

She took to it gladly and watched over it carefully all day and night--pecking my hand when I got close enough to even offer a watermelon rind. (Hens can be so mean to each other but they really are wonderful mothers). 

She was so delighted with her little runt of a crooked-beaked chick.

The next day Mike discovered her strutting about in a panic. Her adopted chick, now that he had a little more strength, had abandoned her and gone back to his siblings. 

Now she just hovers about on the outskirts of the main mom and chicks like some sort of childless aunt. 

Hans found a dead duckling under our trampoline this week. (How? I've seen no ducks. The cats?) He was so sad, so he put it in a box and ... put it in our garage. In this heat. (Eeeeehuhhh. Ohhhhhh.)

And our bishop found two motherless peachicks (baby peacocks!) on his farm and asked if we would try putting them under our hen. But one kept wandering away so we put the two of them together under a heat lamp instead. And then one ... you may have guessed it ... died.

(Starling loved the peachicks. She still loves the peachick.)

(She loves to measure her peachick. Though her measurements range wildly. It grows and shrinks between two and three inches daily.)

(Peachick parrot [?] above and peachick at morning scriptures below.)

Two. (Sniffle.)

Mike and I were going through the small tragedies we've experienced in the last year or two alone. One of our pygmy goats--despite Goldie and some of the kids rushing it to the vet. All three of another goats' babies--stillborn. Pig's little runt sibling. Pig. Our huge geese (dogs). About a million chickens (the same dogs). A baby chick. A baby peacock. All the mice our cats bring to the porch (to our kids' horror). One of the birds that got in our stove.

I'm probably forgetting some. 

But we are part in the animal world now. And part in the funeral industry. 

When we called Abe about Pig, he did point out how removed we mostly are from death these days. There's no preparing loved ones' bodies for burial anymore, etc. He suggested that there was something a little bit poignant in the kids experiencing and being a little closer to this circle of life business.

Perhaps he's right. 

But goodness!

We are definitely going to need less faint hearts!

90!

On July 27th my mom turned 90! 

Oh, if only this could be what everyone had to look forward to. Nobody would need to worry about aging for a minute!

Oh I know, her eyes are giving her a little trouble, and she no longer drives at night. And she tells me she can't remember names very well anymore. But she teaches a rambunctious primary class, and serves in the temple, and teaches a few piano lessons every week (just free of charge for a few neighbors and family members), and, when we were sitting out on the back lawn together at her birthday party, she hopped right up after, while I had to have Mike help me!

In any case, we had a big family party at Polk's End. (Sadly, the drought, combined with really low water pressure from Pineview this year, has robbed us of the full green of that marvelous backyard. It's still one of the happiest places to be though.)

Chris's kids Maddie and Gordy.

Shan's Lila and Addie. Brother Rob. (His wife Amber in the background between Lila and Addie.)

Amy's daughter-in-law Mika (on the right holding the baby) made my mom's cake.

John's daughter Hannah on the left. Some of Kathy's granddaughters on the right.

I really just think my mom is the best there's ever been on this planet. 

How do I even put her in words? 

She is an angel--yes. But not in some airy, fluffy, unrelatable way. She brought refugees and a million others who needed a place to stay into her home, she served God with the most dependable and solid faith one could ever imagine, she taught me--solely through example--to always be kind, she taught me not to be remotely afraid of questions and what ifs about life and the gospel. (Why would I need to be afraid or shy away from wondering about things when those wonderings could be explored against the solidness of her foundation. I spent so much of my growing up just ... asking her things.) But also ... her goodness dwelt in a personality that was totally in touch with all the complexities and messiness of life. She didn't do her good in a world of pristine, unearthly living, but in a practical, dig in your hands and get dirty sort of way that showed me all good could exist alongside the untidy and stressful and imperfect realities of a mortal existence. 

I can't think of a better person to induct children into this business of living, but how can you say "eternally grateful" without it just sounding trite? I don't know, but I don't feel it in some small way. I am eternally grateful--forever and forever--that I got to be one of her children. I feel to rejoice every moment that I think of my parents and the life they created for me to grow up in.

Thank you so much for agreeing to all of us, Mom! How was it arranged? And why did I, of all people, get to be tied to it all? I can't wait to know it all someday.

The five daughters. (Almost all of her 11 kids were there. Only one brother was out of town.)

Brother Aaron, nephew Adam, brother Chris, and the back of his son Gordy's head. :)

Sister-in-law Missy and Amy's daugher Mia.

John's daughter Hannah and her husband Harbor.

That's all the pictures I happened to take, but just for fun let's end with a few of my mom from days gone by.

With my brothers Rob and John.

With me!

Oh I love this one. I love them so much!

Happy 90 years Mom!